Safety Leadership Summit Presenters

Steve Taylor - Luminaire Solutions 

Steve is currently the Director at Luminaire Solutions and has over 30 years of international experience in the FM industry. Steve has held senior management roles for a diverse range of companies across facilities management, project management and soft services. Steve is a commercially focused, forward thinking business leader that has delivered growth through building customer centric solutions through the delivery of service excellence. He is an International Executive who has worked in Europe, Asia, and Australia across the fields of Facilities and Asset Management, Property, Operations, Infrastructure and Project Management. He is also a life member of the FMA.

Julio Bara  - Clayton Utz

Julio is the Senior Manager - Health, Safety and Wellbeing at Clayton Utz.  Julio is responsible for the strategic development and management of Clayton Utz Health, Safety and Wellbeing Program. He is a human centric, results and data driven leader and enjoy bringing together different organisational functions, supply chain partners including insurers and brokers to better align the task to the board level.

Julio is an experienced consulting professional with more than 12 years’ of health, safety and wellbeing management experience. Julio has a degree in Human Movement (Clinical Exercise Physiology) and a Masters in Occupational Health and Safety (majoring in Health Management). He is an Exemplar Global accredited lead auditor in Integrated Management Systems (AS4801, ISO9001, ISO14001, including ISO 45001 and OHSAS 18001) and has completed numerous safety and risk management audits both locally and internationally. He is a Member of the International Institute of Risk and Safety Management (IIRSM), Graduate Member of the International Institute of Safety and Health and he is a Functional lead of the Corporate Mental Health Alliance and a committee member of the Health Benefits of Good Work.

Sue Bottrell - LinkSafe

Sue is the leading lawyer and OHS specialist in the management of contractor safety. She has developed the modern approach to managing contractor safety, which both reduces legal liability and improves contractor safety. 

John Haines - LivCOR

John is a paramedic and author with over 15 years service in the Victorian Ambulance Service and author of Emergency First Aid, Remote Area First Aid and Occupational First Aid to name a few.  John has sold over 2 million publications and has presented at Sparks of Life International Conference (1993, 1999), Advanced Medical Concepts Conference (1997, 1999), Medcica (2019).  John was awards a Lifetime Individual membership award in 2019 at the First Aid Industry Alliance (FAIA).

Tanya Pelja - BGIS

Tanya Pelja holds the position of Executive Director, HSEQ at BGIS, where she leads the HSEQ and Injury Management functions for BGIS in Asia Pacific and works closely with the business to implement the strategic safety and compliance plan. Tanya is an experienced senior manager with workplace health and safety (WHS) expertise across many diverse industries. Her expertise includes risk and change management, and psychosocial health and wellbeing programs with a reputation for building successful partnerships and high-performing teams. Prior to BGIS, Tanya held the role of Associate Director of WHS at HealthShare NSW, the largest government shared services organisation in Australia.  

Melissa Pollock - Abergeldie Complex Infrastructure

Melissa Pollock is the General Manager - Health and Safety for Abergeldie Complex Infrastructure (civil construction). She has previously led safety teams/has experience in local government; emergency services, FMCG, facilities management, retail/property, manufacturing, and the utilities sectors. She is passionate about continuing to improve the safety of work, working with business to ensure workers can be psychologically safe and thrive at work; going home in a better condition than when they arrived. She continues to learn from contemporary theories in safety as well as positive psychology and neuroscience. Melissa also dedicates time to her professional body, the Australian Institute of Health and Safety to ensure she can support the safety profession to uphold the standards and skills required to support organisations and drive improvements in workplace health and safety.

Clare Hutton - ERMHA365

Clare Hutton is the Work Health and Safety Manager for ermha365, a not for profit provider of complex mental health and disability services.
Clare has worked as a health and safety consultant to various businesses over the years from mining and manufacturing to government and small business. She has been involved in the property sector over this time, including undertaking and managing property risk assessment programs and is an OHS Exemplar Global qualified auditor.
Clare has had roles as an Health and Safety Manager for a large shopping centre group and within the franchising sector and is known to be practical and collaborative in her approach.
Clare’s passion for health and safety sits well with her involvement in the humanitarian sector where she undertook a role with UNRWA in Jerusalem, and is an associate trainer with Red R, providing immersive training for the humanitarian sector.  

Shane Brady and Chris Wilson - Department of Premier and Cabinet (NSW)

Shane and Chris are the physical and protective security subject matter expert for the NSW public service’s lead agency. They have responsibility for the overarching security and risk strategy, and has introduced a number of continuous improvement initiatives to ensure the ongoing safety and security of New South Wales’ first minister, members of cabinet, key stakeholders and assets, including state categorised critical infrastructure.
The Strategic Security Unit has played a key role in a range of NSW Government and cross-sector initiatives that have included:
- Operation Coronavirus 2020 - advisory and operational management. 
- Attended and observed the CPNI trials of methods to increase survival rates for occupants of high-rise corporate buildings under attack (Project Ascend), United Kingdom. 
- Developed and tested (impact and explosive) an engineer designed purpose-built concrete blocks as a temporary and re-deployable vehicle as a weapon defence. The ‘Vehicle Blockers’ were successfully deployed provide a whole-of-government, cost effective solution to mitigate and defend against hostile vehicle attacks.

James Watson -Australian Border Force

Australian Border Force Commander James Watson has an extensive background in law enforcement and defence over a span of almost 30 years. He is admitted to practice as a barrister and solicitor in Victoria, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. He was general counsel for the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. He has also served as a permanent and reserve member of the Australian Army Legal Corps. Operational roles with the Australian Army have taken Commander Watson on deployments to the Solomon Islands, Timor Leste and PNG. He has also deployed to Afghanistan with the United States Department of Defense and Department of State. Commander Watson formally studied at the University of Melbourne completing a Bachelor of Laws, Graduate Diploma of Military Law and a Masters of Law. In July 2014, Commander Watson was the foundational Regional Commander for Central Region (NT /SA). He has also undertaken leadership roles within the ABF in Detention, Field Compliance and Removal Operations and was the Regional Commander for Victoria / Tasmania.  From 2018 to 2021 Commander Watson was seconded to the Department of Home Affairs where undertook the role of Regional Director, Pacific. This role is based out of the High Commission in Wellington New Zealand. In May 2021, Commander Watson returned to Melbourne where he took up his current role as Commander Maritime and Enforcement South.

Leigh Mackender - Service Stream

Leigh Mackender joined ServiceStream when it acquired the AMRS (now Energy and Water) in February 2008. Prior to being appointed Managing Director, Leigh was responsible for overseeing the Energy and Water business’ national operations which includes metering, asset inspection and in-home services divisions operating across the electricity, gas and water markets. Leigh has over 15 years of extensive experience working within the industrial services sector and held various roles in private and public businesses specialising in the development and implementation of business strategy, operational management, financial analysis, business development and commercial negotiations. Leigh is a member of the Sustainability, Safety, Health and Environment Committee. Leigh has no other listed company directorships and has held no other listed company directorships in the last three years.

Mark Moskvitch -SafeWork NSW

Mark started his career with ten years in coronial forensic sciences before moving into work health & safety as a Safety Manager at Concord Hospital. He then spent 13 years as a SafeWork NSW Inspector before changing over to the private sector as a consultant auditing defence bases followed by a 3 year stint with Telstra as a Senior HSE Risk Specialist. Returning to the public sector in 2017, Mark spent two years as the Senior Manager WHS for Property NSW where he oversaw work health and safety concerns across Darling Harbour, The Rocks and all NSW government owned or leased properties. In 2019 he moved back into familiar territory at SafeWork NSW as the State Inspector Working Environment. In this role he serves as a technical specialist oversighting complex matters involving the built environment in addition to a range of physical hazards comprising noise, vibration, thermal comfort, air quality, lighting, radiation, nanotechnology, diving, slips trips & falls and confined spaces. He advises the NSW Government upon matters within his portfolio and liaises on behalf of SafeWork NSW with employer associations, trade unions, other Government Authorities and the public. He is a member of the NSW Radiation Advisory Council and sits on the Standards Australia Committees for lighting. Having been involved in the early development of the NABERS process, Mark’s professional practice focuses upon the built environment as a dynamic system where a range of occupational safety and building sustainability factors work together to improve occupant safety and comfort.